poinsettias to make Martha Stewart proud. âIf she shows up, I can stick a poinsettia between my teeth and hide in it.â
âSo much for my hard work.â Maggie picked up the garland and tossed it in the general direction of one of the opened boxes. âAnd there you go again. Hide? Why? And she who?â She wrinkled her nose. âWhom?â
âFelicity,â Bernie told her, reaching into her overlarge Fendi purse and pulling out a full-size box of tissues. She snatched two tissues and lustily blew her nose, for all the publisher of Toland Books had gotten out of her trip across the pond was a rotten English cold. âSheâs on a rampage.â
âFaith?â Maggie said, as she refused to call her onetime friend Felicity. The one, happily the only, Felicity Boothe Simmons.
Not that Maggie had anything against pseudonyms. But she hadnât demanded that her supposed closest friends stop calling her Maggie and begin calling her Cleo, even in private, just because sheâd hit the NYT . Momma pin a rose on me! Jeez. âSo whyâs our Ms. Boob-Job on a rampage this time?â
Bernie scrunched up the used tissues, pulled a plastic bag from the Fendi, and the tissues joined a bunch of their similarly abused mates. âI read that this is supposed to be more hygienicâand this purse cost the earth so I donât want to get it soggy. There is that, too,â she explained as she zippered the bag shut. âI love it when you call her that, by the way. Someday sheâs going to knock someone out with one of those things. She asked my advice, I told her a C, like me, so naturally she went for the double-D. Woman has no sense of proportion. And she fell off the Times , thatâs why. And I mean all the way off, even the extended list. Only three weeks. Then again, considering the boobs, maybe she bounced off the list. Oh, God, that was lameâblame it on the head cold.â
âNot even the extended list? Really?â Maggie said in some glee, then frowned and repeated more sympathetically, âReally? Ah, thatâs too bad. Only three weeks, huh? Bummer. Poor Faith, she must be absolutely devastated.â
âOh, please, youâll be drooling in another minute. Naturally, itâs entirely my fault. I didnât print enough copies. I didnât do enough promo, certainly not enough radio. I should have sent her to more cities on her tour, found a way to get her on the Today showâlike that was going to happen, but ever since you were on last year, sheâs had a bug up her backside about it. Hell, I would have sent her to the moon if I could haveâI mean, youâve never been there, she could beat you to it. Think how proud sheâd be, up there in orbit. And how blessedly quiet it would be down here.â
âWow, youâre in a good mood.â
âI have a headache. That book is a headache. Destiny of Desire was a stinker out of the gate. I knew it, she knew it. The title doesnât even fucking make sense.â
Maggie nodded, still attempting to feign sympathy for Faith. âWell, it happens after eight books in the same series. Moment of Desire . Night of Desire . Season of Desire . On and on. Sooner or later, you run out of good words. And plausible plots,â she added under her breath.
Maggie and Faith went, as the saying goes, way back. Back to when they were both struggling authors fighting the often losing battle of the mid-list. Then, just as Maggieâs first alter ego, Alicia Tate Evans, had bit the big one, Faith had rocketed to the big time as Felicity Boothe Simmons, newly crowned queen of the historical romance novel, and the friendship had gone from equals to that of the Big Star only occasionally deigning to smile in the peonâs direction.
But when Maggie had hit as Cleo Dooley? Hit much larger, higher, and harder than Felicity Boothe Simmons? Thatâs when Faith had turned flat-out mean.